Third time's the charm
by TheDarkwriter7
Summary: Sequel to 'A nightmare that won't go away'. Three years have passed since the infection of Blithe Hollow. Aggie and Norman are happily together, he has been forgiven for what he unintenionally caused and everything appears to be looking good from here on out. However, a plan of revenge for a fallen soldier threatens to destroy everything that Agatha has fought to save. Includes OCs


**STORY DISCLAMIER – I do not own ParaNorman. It is owned by Laika studios.**

_**Important notice -**__** Before you begin reading this fan fic, make sure that you have read the story predecessor, 'A nightmare that won't go away'. This is highly important as this fic will contain many factors from that story.**_

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_(A/N – Goooooooooooood morning/afternoon/evening everybody!_

_I have to admit, because you guys are by far the ones that love my writing the most, it feels great to be writing to you guys again. Since around this time last year when I finished 'A nightmare that won't go away', I have actually been unable to start and finish another proper fan fic – I have only been able to do updates for my series of oneshots and to start a 'Teen Titans' fic which is now on hold because the amount of views I was getting showed that it wouldn't really matter if I put it on hold for something better that is more loved and will get more followers, favourites, reviews and generally loved by readers... like you guys :). So, it's been nearly a whole year but finally... we are here. Now, ladies and gentlemen... sit back and enjoy the ride as we begin the journey of part 2 of the 'Inner Witch trilogy' of ParaNorman, __**'Third time's the charm'**__._

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**Third time's the charm chapter 1 – Sebastian Orinchov**

_-Entry date – August 17th 2017-_

_Dear diary,_

_It's that time of year again. Sometimes, it's actually hard to believe that it's been a whole five years since the date when... all this... initially began. The date... August 17th 2012 and I'll never forget it. It was the year when my crazy uncle Mr. Prenderghast passed the task of keeping the town's 'witch's curse' at bay onto me. Soon after, the witch's spirit awoke from its yearlong slumber and had zombies attack our village for what happened to her years and years ago. I managed to stop it though, with the help of my family and friends, and I was able to put the witch's curse to an end once and for all._

_However, it didn't end there as I had thought. Two years later, Agatha Prenderghast was resurrected so she could be given 'a second chance'. To know that my long time crush was now real at the time was absolutely amazing! But like with most things in life, when you get something good, you get something bad._

_A worldwide pharmaceuticals company known as 'Wide spread' wanted to bring me in, so they could find a way to manufacture a distributional version of my ability to see the dead. So they could do this, they hired a mercenary by the name of Byron White to capture me and bring me back to them. He nearly succeeded, I'll give him that, but the way he nearly completed his mission was the bad thing that happened on that day._

_The way Byron threatened my family in order to get me to join him... made me angry. And Aggie tells me now that the Inner Witch inside us feeds on negative emotions such as rage, fear and hatred. So, when I felt pure anger against Byron... it was as if I was giving my Inner Witch a ticket to an all-you-can-eat buffet. With enough strength from my emotions, it took control of me... and began a second attempt at a takeover of our world._

_When under my Inner Witch's control, I released a shock wave of my genetic that allows me to see the dead. However, it didn't work with everyone else; you need to have a certain genetic makeup for the gene to adapt to you, my uncle Crawden told me afterwards. So... the shockwave turned anyone whose immune system wasn't strong enough into a brutal killer of anyone who wasn't like them and it turned my peaceful little village... into a place where murder was a daily occurrence._

_Byron, who had somehow survived, had called for immediate extraction from the disease control faction of 'Wide Spread' pharmaceuticals and said that if he wasn't rescued then he was going to tell the boss of the company about the situation... so that the boss would 'sterilize' my village of infection. In the end, Byron wasn't rescued but was in fact killed by the infected villagers he had helped to create. Aggie says that she, with the help of a W.S.D.C. soldier and two scientists, was able to rescue me and get everything back to normal._

_My uncle Crawden, who is a doctor for 'Wide Spread', took samples of both mine and Aggie's blood afterwards. He said that he wanted them for safe keeping so if anything like this were to happen again then there would at least be a chance of creating a vaccine. However, three years have passed since that horrendous incident so now, I consider the Inner Witch a thing of the past._

"Norman! Breakfast is on the table and everyone's having at it!" called a voice from down the stairs of the Babcock house in the village of Blithe Hollow. Upon hearing his mother, the boy who had only just awoke from his slumber set down his pen and closed his 'journal', as he called it (it was obviously a diary).

"Ok mum!" the boy called back. "I'll be down in a few minutes!" The boy raised himself from his bed and, clad in his pyjamas and zombie slippers, made his way to the bathroom from his undead-themed room. On the way, he passed the guest room of the house, his parents' room, his sister's room and the newly established room of a certain girl. The boy entered the bathroom and began brushing his spiky hair as he took in his reflection of the bathroom cabinet mirror.

Now at 16, Norman Babcock had barely changed. His hair was still in its spiky fashion from when he styled it that way all those years ago, his eyes still held that sky blue glow within them and his ears were still as big as snooker balls. In the last three years, Norman had received a growth spurt and so now stood at a tall height of 5'11. Despite his newfound advantage of height, however, Norman was still the zombie obsessed boy he always was. When he realised brushing his hair was not going to make any difference, the youngest Babcock laid his comb down on the side of the bathroom sink and picked up his toothbrush.

As he squirted some toothpaste onto his electric toothbrush, a familiar chill of pleasant feeling ran up Norman's spine when a pair of skinny arms encircled his waist. Smirking to himself, he lowered his toothbrush to the side of the sink before placing his own hands upon the girl's petite ones.

"Good morning Aggie," Norman said as he tilted his head back to lay it on his girlfriend's shoulder. "How are you today?" Similarly to Norman, the 16 year old Agatha 'Aggie' Prenderghast had barely changed in the three years since the incident of the Blithe Hollow infection; her only major change being the fact that she had grown to a height of 5'6. Clad in her puritan dress that she now wore to bed and out with the family, the girl twisted the boy around so they could see each other's faces.

"Very well, thank you Normy." she said, moving forward slightly to put her arms around his neck and tickle his nose with her own. Rolling his eyes, Norman made an attempt and succeeded (though grudgingly) to escape from his girlfriend's hold on him.

"Aggie, I need to get ready for school," Norman said in answer to her wondering look on Norman's escape from her arms. "Besides, I think that you would rather be close to me _after _I've brushed my teeth and had a shower." The girl gave him a playful glare before rolling her own eyes and making her way down to breakfast. Now alone, Norman picked his electric toothbrush back up into his hand and began cleaning his teeth.

Since the Blithe Hollow infection caused by the 'Inner Witch', things had gone up and down for the Babcock family. Some villagers forgave Norman immediately after everything was sorted out and others forgave him after being told about the Inner Witch that lived inside and Agatha. However, there were sadly people who _did _see the infection as Norman's doing and so he has since received insults and offenses from either some who used to respect or people who never liked him even after he saved the village two years prior.

The people who stuck by him all the way, Norman had to admit that he was surprised that some of them still defended him against the haters after everything that had happened. His main family and Aggie were his main defenders with Brendan Vulka, a 'Wide Spread Disease Control' soldier, and his uncle Crawden backing them up, despite the fact that the doctor had lost his best friend, a Dr. Ryder Todd to the infected.

Staying to protect Norman were also his friends from school, some of them simply because they felt it wasn't his doing or because they wanted to defend their previous saviour. Two of these 'friends' who have stuck by him throughout the past three years were Neil and Salma; this had greatly shocked the Babcock boy considering both Neil and Salma had lost family members due to the infection he had accidentally caused, Neil losing Mitch whilst Salma lost her mother. However, if Norman was more shocked by anything in the last three years, it had to be by the fact that _Alvin _had stood by Norman when he was being hated.

Spitting out the toothpaste from his mouth, Norman looked into the bathroom cabinet mirror and couldn't help but frown and look at his hands. Norman always felt guilt, even if only a little bit, well up inside him every time someone mentioned the dreaded infection that had happened in the year of 2014. People, normally his family or friends (or Alvin) would tell him that it was not and will never be his fault; it was the Inner Witch's doing. However, because the Inner Witch had _technically _been a part of Norman, he found that very hard to believe at times; the worst times would be when someone would mention a relative who had died during the infection's time period or when Norman would feel the scars on Aggie's stomach that his Inner Witch had given her.

"Come on Normy!" said puritan girl called. "What's taking you so long?" Just hearing Aggie's voice turned Norman's frown into a smile. Even after all the horror she went through, her own guilt, facing the infected and an Inner Witch controlled Norman Babcock, Agatha Prenderghast still somehow found enough goodness in her heart to love and forgive him. Her forgiveness had come easy, as she had been a similar situation many times before but her love... her love was what he craved. He felt it radiating from her with whatever she did. When she would laugh at something he said, when she would hold his hand, when she would wrap her arms around him... when she would kiss him.

Norman was brought back to the real world when he felt something soft collide with his head. He turned around to see his girlfriend standing there, a playful smirk on her face and a stuffed zombie in her hands.

"What was that for?" Norman asked whilst rubbing his head, even though it hadn't really hurt. Aggie raised her eyes to look in the direction of the sky, as if thinking about it, before looking at him again and shrugging her shoulders.

"Hey, you do a lot of things for me when I ask so if my pleading voice can't get you to come downstairs, this was the last resort." After recovering from 'being assaulted', Norman looked at her with an apologetic smile.

"Ok ok, I'm coming down now." he pointed in the direction his room of the house was in. "Now return Frankenstein to his lair." Aggie laughed out loud, even though the two of them were nearly adults, they still knew how to play around like children.

"Alright," she began as she started to leave the bathroom. "But if you are not downstairs in two minutes then I will come back up here and _drag _you down there!" Alone once more, Norman took one final look at himself in the mirror and smiled.

Despite all that had happened on this fateful day three years ago, Norman Babcock could tell today was going to be a good day.

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_Meanwhile..._

Within a graveyard in Australia, a doctor for the worldwide pharmaceutical company 'Wide Spread' looked down at a grave of a certain former work partner and best friend. The man observing the grave, tall and skinny with blonde mop-like hair covering his sky blue eyes was dressed well for the occasion. Instead of his white lab coat and red tie he normally wore, a black trench coat addend his body whilst a matching black top hat aimed to conceal most of his hair. In the last three years, his eyesight had suffered and the man was now forced to hide his eyes behind a pair of rectangular dark blue framed glasses. Looking at the gravestone, the man felt tears well up in the corners of those very eyes.

_Here lies Ryder Jason Todd, a noble man and father,_

_7th March 1975 – 1st September 2014_

_Rest in peace, you will live on in our hearts._

The last line of the of the gravestone was followed by a list of names who had known Ryder Todd greatly; the man who stood in front of the grave right now noticed his name was written beneath four others – the names of Ryder's parents and his two children.

Crawden Babcock, an experimental doctor for the Australian branch of 'Wide Spread' began to leave the graveyard; his boss had only allowed his to take an hour of work to come and see Ryder's grave and it would take him a good twenty minutes to return to his workplace. Despite the fact that his friend's death had been three years ago, the blonde couldn't but cry every month he saw that grave.

The beginning of 'Lost generation' by Rizzle Kicks began playing from Crawden's mobile phone within his trench coat pocket. Before the song could actually begin, the man pulled out his Smartphone and checked the caller ID; it was his new secretary back at work, a Miss. Charlotte Gorman.

"Hello Charlotte," he greeted immediately after answering the phone. "I don't mean to sound rude but why are you calling my mobile? I said to only call me on this phone if it was an absolute emergency." The young woman's American voice followed.

"I know doctor, which is exactly why I called," she said. There was a slight pause on her end of the line before she spoke again. "I have a Mr. Sebastian Orinchov in the office over here, he wishes to speak to you right away... in person." Crawden groaned. His boss had told him that a Mr. Sebastian Orinchov was going to be paying a visit, something to do with the Blithe Hollow infection three years before.

"Alright, thanks for telling me," Crawden replied. "I'm on my way back from the graveyard now, I'll be there shortly." Upon saying those words, the doctor's secretary cut the phone line. The Babcock put his Smartphone back in his trench coat pocket and began making his way to his car that was parked only a minute away.

As soon as Crawden reached his place of work and exited his vehicle, he made sure to waste no time as he passed by work colleagues, some of which greeted him, and friends to make it to his office. In all honesty, the Babcock doctor was quite scared about the upcoming meeting with Sebastian Orinchov; that's why Crawden was in such a hurry, he wanted to get it over and done with.

Moments later, Crawden saw a familiar key card access only door down the hallway. When the man reached the door, he wasted no time in taking the door's keycard out from his inner lab coat pocket before he slipped through the keycard sensor equipped to the wall just next to the door. A familiar *beep* reached the doctor's ears as the door slid open, revealing a middle aged woman with brown hair and round glasses over hazelnut eyes dressed in the average black secretary clothing sitting at a desk. The woman raised her head and smiled at her 'boss'.

"Ah doctor, you're back." She said, stating the obvious. However, even though Crawden normally joked with Charlotte about this, he did not this time; not was not a time for joking. He stepped into the room and as the door behind him closed and locked, opened his mouth to ask his secretary where the 'patient' currently was.

His mouth closed, question unspoken when he noticed the man standing by the door to his area of work.

Sebastian Orinchov was a white skinned man from Russia. His black eyes were cold and judgemental whilst his mouth never showed even a hint of a smile; his hair was brown and, to Crawden's discomfort, in a style similar to that of a Mr. Byron White. His appearance was very professional and that of a business man, consisting of a dark sea blue suit with black tie and a yellow shirt underneath, a badge of the Soviet Union logo on his suit acted as an accompaniment and a sign of the man's nationality. Crawden's eyes connected with Sebastian's as soon as he turned his head to see him standing at the door.

"Mr. Orinchov." Crawden greeted emotionlessly, he didn't want to sound happy to see the Russian and he _definitely _didn't want to sound like he disliked the man for from what Crawden had heard, if you had to even _communicate_ with Sebastian Orinchov at any point, you had to be on your toes when dealing with him. At the greeting, Sebastian runned his eyes over the doctor's body before giving him a curt nod.

"Dr. Babcock." he replied, his voice also void of any emotion but full with a thick Russian accent. The two seemed to stare at each other for a moment, checking to see who was weaker in moments of silence. Eventually, Crawden made the first move and began walking towards the door to his personal work space that Orinchov was stood next to. The blonde man used the same keycard he had used earlier and opened the door before walking in, Sebastian following.

The door closed behind them as the two entered the room. Wasting no time at all, the two sat down at in the respective places – Crawden in the chair behind his desk with Sebastian in the chair in front of the desk, the doctor was quick to remove his lab coat upon sitting down in his chair. Like outside the room moments ago, the two seemed to beckon in the silence for a while before soon, Sebastian spoke.

"Do you know why I am here?" he asked, his black eyes appearing as if they were trying to stare into Crawden's very soul. Feeling uncomfortable, the doctor moved his sight away from the Russian and to his desk.

"No. I've never even communicated with you before. Only heard of you from my boss and my secretary." For a moment, Sebastian seemed as if he was trying to impersonate a statue. After a moment, he began moving again when he dug his hand into one of the inner pockets of his suit jacket, he removed a USB memory stick from it. He held it out to the Babcock, signalling for him to take it.

Crawden stared at the USB for a second after he claimed from the other man's grasp, wondering what could possibly be on it. Deciding to find out, he inserted the USB into one of the removable storage drives of his office computer. The computer began loading a file from the USB as soon as it was inserted, what came up sent a chill down the blonde's spine and almost sent him into a depression of guilt.

"The case of Byron White's death in Blithe Hollow three years ago has yet to be resolved," spoke Sebastian from the other side of the desk. "Up till now, the organisation I work for and 'Wide Spread' pharmaceuticals have been working together to clear everything to do with and regarding this 'infection'. However, two weeks ago, my head of work informed me that since almost everything has been cleared up, Byron White's fate at the hands of the infected in Blithe Hollow three years prior can now be dealt with, legally and mentally."

Crawden understood what Orinchov meant when he said that. Because they had technically left him for dead, the death of the Australian mercenary during the Blithe Hollow infection had left a huge weight of guilt on the shoulders of Agatha Prenderghast, Brendan Vulka, Ryder Todd and Crawden Babcock. The document regarding the entire case had been printed up years ago by the government but there were still a few legal files that needed to be filled out. Plus, the feeling of guilt had been in Crawden's heart for so long, it was time it was removed.

"Alright. My boss told me about those last legal documents that need to filled out. We keep them here in the printed documents room just down the hall. I'll go get them, save you the trouble." The Babcock stood up from his desk as soon as those words left his mouth, leaving Mr. Orinchov no chance to deny the action. Before the Russian knew it, Crawden was out the door, going off the collect what was needed.

Sebastian Orinchov was now alone in the office of Dr. Crawden Babcock. The man moved his head from left to right slowly, taking in the things around him. He stood up from his place at the desk before walking over to a glass cabinet in a corner of the room. Within it, Sebastian could see three test tubes of liquid, each with an accompanying syringe. One of the test tubes held a turquoise liquid but Sebastian wasn't interested in that one. No, he was interested in the other two test tubes, the two filled with red blood and each having a different name on it.

The name 'Norman Babcock' was on one and the name 'Agatha Prenderghast' was on the other.

Sebastian had known Byron White for a long time when he the Australian had been alive. They had been best friends, like brothers even, and these people at 'Wide Spread' had sent him to his death and didn't even try to help him. Through great amounts of thorough research, Orinchov had discovered a way to gain revenge for his fallen comrade. Yes, it may cost him his humanity, but if the plan would make everyone at 'Wide spread' pay, it would be worth it. All Sebastian had to do now was find a way to open the cabinet quietly so as not to alert the secretary just outside the room.

He looked to where Dr. Crawden had been sat moments ago and his lab coat now lay. He raised an eyebrow of wonder when a thought came to mind.

Had Crawden taken his keycard with him?


End file.
